City Hunter Epilogue
by sleepypie1212
Summary: Kim Nana must reconstruct her life in the wake of the apparent death of Lee Yoon-sung. But is the city hunter really dead?
1. Chapter 1

1

/waking up to ash and dust/

Kim Nana held the armrests of the hospital in a death-grip. It felt like she was breaking inside, all the nerves concentrated in a tight ball in her stomach.

_He'll be fine, he'll be fine_. She said over and over to herself, trying to ignore the bloodstains on the knees of her suit. And that that was the same chant she'd said during her parents' desperate and ultimately pointless surgeries all those years ago.

Outside the private waiting room she could dimly hear the noise of reporters clamoring for a scoop on the near assassination of President Choi and the hero who'd taken the bullet for him. It grew briefly louder as the door swung open, and then dimmed again as it shut.

Someone crouched down before her. Nana managed to focus her eyes long enough to get a good look at her companion. "Shin Eun-ah." She managed a smile for her partner, before it twisted into a grimace.

Eun-ah forced a paper cup into her hand. "Drink this." She instructed, worry laced through her tired voice. "You've been here for hours, no food, no drink. You need something."

Nana looked down tiredly into the brown goo. It didn't look very appetizing. Lee Yoon-sung loved her coffee. He always made her make it for him. She stuck it between her knees, keeping her hands wrapped around its welcoming warmth. "Have you seen the doctors?" She said, surprised at how rough her voice sounded. She hadn't used it for a while.

Eun-ah hesitated, and then nodded. "The would-be assassin is dead."

Nana closed her eyes. Yoon-sung's father. The man, who despite all his rage and hate, Yoong-sung had loved. The man with the cold, cold eyes. "Lee Yoon-sung?"

Eun-ah's silence was longer. Nana's eyes flew open. "Eun-ah?"

"It doesn't look good." Eun-ah's usually good-humored face looked drawn, as if someone had penciled in age marks around her eyes and mouth over the past few hours. "Unni…"

Nana felt like she was choking. Why did everyone she love wind up here, in the cold hygiene of hospitals, fading away into tubes and bleeping machinery? Was she a curse?

"Is there someone I should call? Does he have family?"

Nana bit her lip. "His mother…Ahjusshi…Soo-hee unni." Oh God, unni, who had lost the prosecutor, and now would lose another friend. His mother, still in the hospital fighting her cancer, who had just found her son. Ahjusshi…

"His mother." Eun-ah caught at the phrase eagerly. "Do you have her number?"

Nana nodded numbly, and dug her cell out of her bag, sliding through the numbers until she found the appropriate one. Her thumb hovered over the dial number, but she couldn't bring herself to punch it. Ahjumma's voice on the other end would bring this all home in a way nothing else could.

"Can you do it?" She said, thrusting the phone at her friend. "Her name is Lee Kyung-hee. She's lovely. She…" _She wants me to marry her son, for us all to live happily together, to leave the past where it belongs. Buried. _

But she couldn't say any of those things.

Eun-ah just nodded and took the phone. She pressed the dial button, and after a few rings began an earnest conversation with the person on the other end of the line.

Nana found herself gasping, and had to hunch over her knees wrapping her arms (coffee cup still clenched in one hand) around her midsection. "Nana? Nana! Ahjumma, you know where to find us? Alright, I have to go." Eun-ah put the phone down, and knelt before her friend. "Nana, are you alright?"

_No_, Nana found herself mouthing to her blood-soaked knees over and over again. _No, and I'll never be alright again, do you understand that? Because I knew he might die, but I was stupid enough to hope he wouldn't. And now he might never wash my hair again, or let me flip him in judo, or engage in stupid heroics just because he wants to change the world. The city hunter might never hunt again._

There was that brief burst of noise again, heralding someone entering the waiting room.

Eun-ah's hand froze on Nana's head, then lifted away, to be replaced by a full arm wrapped around her shoulders. It was enough of a warning. Nana looked up to meet the tired face of a doctor in pale scrubs. He looked as if he had lived through all his worst nightmares this past night, and woken up to find they were all real.

In a dim sort of awareness, Nana decided she liked that face. It meant he cared. Too many doctors didn't, she'd found.

Through that dimness, the doctor's words penetrated. It was by Eun-ah's arm tightening around her that Nana realized what was being said before the actual words processed.

_I'm sorry. We tried everything. He's gone._

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

Nana tasted ashes and dust, and to wipe it away she took a swig of her coffee. "It's not sweet enough." She told them, aware that to them it was irrelevant, a symptom of shock.

But to her, to her and Yoon-sung, it was the most relevant of all things. Because she would never make coffee sweet enough again. Because no coffee, no matter how much sugar she put in, even if she made it just as he liked it, would ever be sweet enough to get this taste of bitterness out of her mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

2

/in the morning light/

Nana lay on her bed, watching dawn light streak across her ceiling.

She'd been doing that a lot lately, she noted. Sleep was hard to find most nights. Dark circles were forming beneath her eyes, making Shin Eun-ah and Lee Kyung-hee worry. They both brought her food most days. Food that often went to waste.

But it was hard to eat when you felt like a soldier who'd just come through a battle, covered in scars that still bled whenever you moved.

Funnily enough, it wasn't just Yoon-sung's death that was keeping her awake at night. She could see the prosecutor—her Daddy Long Legs—whenever she closed her eyes, and Lee Jin-pyo. Her parents were there too, in the dark space between sleep and wakefulness she couldn't seem to remember how to cross.

Soo-hee had been by, with her own dark circles and heartbreak, but more quiet, moving like a star that had lost its orbit—drifting, but determined. Unbroken, yet. She'd taken Nana's dog for a few days, just while Nana found her ground again she'd said. Nana had been thankful, but too exhausted to do more than smile her gratitude.

But this morning, something felt different. Nana probed at the difference, like a kid poking at a sore tooth, recoiling just as she remembered that pain inevitably followed. But this time, the wash of pain had been muted. Maybe partly by the sheer weight of her exhaustion, but it felt like something else was there too.

A decision.

Before Nana could follow that train of thought any further, there was a knock on the door.

If it had been yesterday morning, Nana might have rolled over, closed her eyes, and gone back to her semi-coma.

But it was this morning, and things were shifting in subtle ways. So Nana sat up, slowly against the disorienting spin made up of hunger and tiredness, stuck her feet into her slippers, and shuffled her weary way to the front door of her little room.

When she saw who it was, Nana felt something around her heart relax. Unbeknownst even to herself, this was the person she'd most wanted to see—her troublesome charge, her little sister. Someone who needed to be taken care of even more than Nana did at that moment."Da-hye." She said, and the pleasure in her voice was unfeigned.

"Unni." Da-hye said, subdued for Da-hye. In fact, everything was subdued for Da-hye, her clothes a muted navy, her hair tied back in a quiet ponytail. Her bodyguard—someone Nana didn't recognize and placed as a new hire by the Blue House—was a tall muscled man in sunglasses who glared at Nana as if she posed a national threat. Nana wondered how anyone could think that in her present state she was a threat to anybody.

"Please come in." She backed away, opening the door wider.

Da-hye entered, then paused, holding up her hand. "Wait here." She told her guard authoritatively. To Nana's amazement, he obeyed, although his scowl told her he didn't like it.

It was with a certain amount of satisfaction she closed the door in his face.

In her small living room, Da-hye curled up like a defensive kitten on a couch, cuddling a pillow close. Nana sat next to her, finding that Da-hye had managed to arouse a sluggish curiosity in her. That was a good sign, right? "Da-hye—" she started.

Da-hye interrupted her, her face turning into a pout as she examined Nana's face. "Unni. You don't look so good. Have you been feeling alright?"

Nana felt a rueful grin forming. "Not yet. But I will. Soon."

Da-hye studied her. "How do you know?" She asked, brusquely. "How do you know you will feel better? What's it like?"

Nana's brow furrowed. "When I lost my parents, I learned it. You feel like you're as dead as the person you've lost for a while, but then eventually your body realizes it's still alive. That's the hard part, when body and mind fight. When the body wins, when you give into the unavoidable pull of life, you feel like you're betraying them at first. But then you start to remember how happy they were when you were happy. That they'd _want_ you to live. You still feel guilty sometimes, but that fades. Until one day, you wake up and it doesn't hurt just to breathe. Maybe a corner of your heart will always ache, but you learn to enjoy life again." Realizing how she'd rambled, she shut her mouth abruptly.

Da-hye had nodded, following along intently. When Nana finished, she sighed. "Good. Because I thought I was being a bad person, waking up today and not crying. And I've been trying and trying for hours, but I can't make the tears come."

"You've been crying?" Nana said, touched.

"Of course! For oppa, I'll always cry. Forever."

It sounded like a silly schoolgirl declaration, but Nana nonetheless heard the hurt behind the words. It made her want to smile, against all reason. Da-hye was growing up into a woman. And what a woman she would be.

"You don't have to cry, forever." She said, feeling her way through what her instinct told her would help this woman-child. "He wouldn't want that. Just…remember him. He was a hero."

Da-hye nodded again. "I can do that." She cuddled the pillow closer to her, staring down at her hands as if they held the secret to some great mystery. "Unni?" She asked in a small voice. "When are you coming back to work?"

Nana opened her mouth to tell her _Soon, next week maybe, when my heart feels less like touching it will make it crumble into dust_. But what came out was "I'm not."

Both equally surprised, she and Da-hye stared at each other. "Never?" The younger girl asked, disbelieving.

"Never." Nana affirmed, realizing to her shock that this was the decision she'd made that morning without realizing it. The thing that had begun to numb the pain of Yoon-sung's death.

"Why not?" Da-hye's fingers worried the pillow's fringe. "Is it…me? I thought we were friends."

"It's not you." Nana hastened to reassure her. "It's just…" _What? What is it?_ "It's that Lee Yoon-sung made me realize something. That this…it's not my dream. Putting my life on the line for people who don't necessarily deserve power. Protecting corruption, instead of rooting it out. I don't think I can do this job, any more. Not with a clear conscience."

She more than half-expected Da-hye to jump to her father's defense, angry and offended. But this new Da-hye, so oddly grown-up, just nodded, eyes downcast, lip bitten. "Are we…still friends?" She got out around something that sounded thick in her throat.

Nana lunged forward, wrapping her up in a warm hug and feeling Da-hye's immediate response, an urgent need for reassurance and affection. "We're always friends." She reassured her. "I'm always here, whenever you need me."

Da-hye's sharp little chin nodded into her shoulder. They stayed that way for a moment, before Da-hye disentangled herself. "I have to go." She said, somewhat reluctantly. "I need to be there for father's press conference this morning. But I'll come back and visit?" It ended on a slight high note, a question.

Nana nodded, fierce. "Of course. You'll visit me, and I'll visit you. Don't worry."

Da-hye exhaled, the tense line of her shoulders relaxing. "Next time, I'll make Eun-ah unni bring me."

"It will be just like old times." And from somewhere, Nana dug up a rusty smile.

It must have been just enough, because Da-hye smiled in response and opened the door to go, letting in a shaft of bright morning light. Nana winced, and then forced herself to open her eyes to the light.

"It's a new morning." She said softly. "A new day."


	3. Chapter 3

3

/time to build from the bottom of the pit/

Nana gripped her suitcase handle, took a deep breath, and started walking down the road.

_I'm not going to look back_. She told herself over and over again as the road grew longer and longer, as the distance between herself and the place she had called her home since she was a child grew.

Looking back would defeat the purpose of this exercise, she argued with herself. The whole point of selling all her stuff and moving out was to make a clean break.

It was time to leave the past in the past, just as Lee Yoon-sung had told her to. It was time to say good-bye. To a life built around memories. To a family of ghosts. To a heart dedicated to a dead man.

It was time to acknowledge that she was alive, and to live like it.

And yet…saying good-bye wasn't breaking the deal she'd made with herself, surely?

Against her better judgment, she turned on her heel to take in the vista.

It wasn't a beautiful one. She smiled slightly, remembering Yoon-sung's condemnations of it, the trouble he'd had with all her broken appliances. She remembered her father's pride in it, her mother's smiles. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Even the ugliest things could hold the most precious memories.

But even the most precious memories could form a cage. Lee Yoon-sung had taught her that. It had been two months since he had died, and he was still teaching her things, it seemed. Things he'd said coming back to her in a new light, the riddle of it unlocked as she took fresh stock of her life.

It was time to move on, as she'd never moved on before. To say good-bye to her parents, and, yes, to Yoon-sung. She would never forget them. But she would no longer build her life around them.

She exhaled, squaring her shoulders. She raised one hand in salute and farewell. "Good-bye." She whispered. Was it her imagination that something at the window moved? She smiled a little. She liked the thought of Yoon-sung's spirit waving her off, proud of her. She blew a kiss at the window. "Love you." She whispered.

And then she turned and walked away.

/

She was rooming at Soo-hee's for a while until she found her own place, in her little apartment above the vet clinic. Soo-hee was coping surprisingly well. Nana realized how much she underrated Soo-hee's quiet brand of strength. She was nowhere near as fragile as she looked.

Soo-hee made dinner that night, serving up a delicious feast. "In celebration of having a roommate." Soo-hee smiled. "I've been so lonely. It will be good to have another girl around the place."

Nana's dog yelped in protest.

"You're not the same." Soo-hee protested, adding another heap of rice to Nana's plate. "You don't eat enough." She said sternly. "Look how skinny you've become."

Nana just smiled and pushed a glob of rise into her mouth, chewing vigorously. "I'm going to eat better." She assured her new roommate. "I'll cook three nights a week as well, and help out at the clinic, and—"

Soo-hee laughed, holding up her chopsticks in protest. "I invited you here to rest, not overwork yourself! Doctor's orders."

Nana scowled. "You're a vet. You don't get to give me prescriptions."

Soo-hee brandished her chopsticks more threateningly. "Ya. You want me to get Eun-ah to sit on you until you rest?"

Nana subsided. Eun-ah was more than capable of physically forcing her friend into rest. "I still want to find a job."

"Do you have any idea what you want to do yet?"

Nana poked a vegetable with one of her chopsticks. "Not really." She admitted. Replacing a lifelong dream was difficult, she was finding.

Soo-hee nodded thoughtfully. "There's plenty of time to decide."

Nana sighed. "But I miss having a purpose. I want a reason to get up every morning. Something to be passionate about."

Soo-hee added more food to her plate. "You'll figure it out. I have faith in you. In the meantime…" she made eating motions.

Nana laughed, and scooped up more food.

/

Lee Kyung-hee sat awkwardly beside Nana on the park bench. She looked different, older somehow, despite her returning health. Maybe it was the severe black she was wearing.

Across the park, Ahjusshi was purchasing ice cream and arguing loudly over the price with the cart-man. Nana had to suppress a grin.

Kyung-hee saw the smile anyway, and forced a matching one, patting the younger girl's hand. "It's good to see you looking better."

Nana sighed. "It's an uphill battle, some days."

"Of course it is." Kyung-hee looked out across the green verdure of summer. "But it's good that youth remembers that it is young. Too many years ahead of you to forget that."

There was an implicit suggestion that Kyung-hee did not count herself among that group. But then, Nana thought, what mother forgot her child's death? Whoever recovered from that? She had lost the man she loved, but Kyung-hee had lost her son for the second time.

"Have you and ahjusshi decided what you're going to do?" She asked.

Kyung-hee hesitated, then nodded. "He wants us to go to America and start a restaurant there, with money Yoon-with money my son left us. I think it's a good idea. A fresh start will maybe be best. Korea holds too many bad memories for both of us."

Nana nodded soberly. That was an understatement.

"We'll leave soon, I think. A month or two, at most. We have nothing to wait for and every reason to go. But…I wanted to ask." Kyung-hee turned to her, her face earnest. "I wanted to know if you would come with us."

Nana felt her heart stop. "Come with you?"

Kyung-hee took her hand again, a warm motherly gesture. "Kim Nana. If my son had lived, you might be married to him by now. I might be able to count you as a daughter. In my heart, I already do. I want you to think of me as your mother, and come be the light of my old age. I know you're seeking a purpose now. Come to America with us. Could you? Would you?"

There was so much hope in the older woman's face, Nana hated to dampen it. But her life was here. She wasn't going to run. She was going to rebuild. "Ahjumma…"

"Mother." Kyung-hee corrected her gently.

Nana's heart melted. "Mother. With all my heart, I wish I could say yes. But I feel like I have things to do here. I need to find myself again, and I think I'll do it here. I think here is the only place I can."

Kyung-hee relinquished her hand, hope fading. "I thought you might say that. But I hoped."

"But I will always be your daughter, if you accept me." Nana said, standing and formally bowing.

"Oh, Kim Nana." Kyung-hee stood and wrapped her in an embrace. "I already have."

Ahjusshi broke in on them, an ice cream cone in either hand, eyes suspiciously moist. "I'm not crying." He said in a suffocated voice. "I'm _not_."

"Oh, ahjusshi." Nana broke away and threw her arms around him, not caring if she got ice cream on her sweater.

/

Nana sat by her father's bedside, holding his hand. It felt like holding paper. He was so frail. He was going so fast.

She swallowed stray tears, and looked around the room. It was quiet for the first time in years, all the equipment and monitors gone, all the tools and tricks to prolong life relinquishing way at last to reality.

The reality that no matter how hard she much she lied to herself, the inevitability of it was that her father was never going to wake up. And that he would want to be set free, not kept in limbo for years.

Giving the order to take away life support had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

But it was time.

"Are you proud of me, Yoon-sung?" She whispered to the memory that always lurked in the corner of her head, a shadow she found herself always talking things out with. The answer was never more than the remembered quirk of a smile, the glowing warmth of a remembered laugh. But somehow, it helped. He would have been proud of her.

"I love you, dad." She murmured, putting her head down on the bedside, putting his hand on her head, just like she had done when she was little. "I love you, and I'm sorry. But no more memories."

The heart monitor that was the only piece of technology left in the room suddenly started frantically racing. She jerked upwards, automatically reaching for the call button. But before she could press it, it was flatlining, one long, loud noise.

She hit the button, but it wasn't necessary. As the nurses rushed in, checking for pulses and preparing to call time of death, Nana already knew.

He was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

4

/it's woven in my soul/

Nana sat in Da-hye's café, drumming her heels against the stool and waiting for her coffee. It had been quite a shock when Da-hye had announced her intention of opening a café, and demanded Nana be her first patron. But Nana found herself becoming a regular, drawn by the warm ambiance and the coffee that was—if never sweet enough—still quite good.

"Here, the very Café Latte made by Choi Da-hye." Da-hye said with pride, presenting her newest menu option.

The steam rising off the cup smelled delicious and Nana smiled. "Wow, it's pretty." She said with encouragement. And then, with the pride of an older sister. "You really seem like a barista now."

"Right?" Da-hye said with equal pride. But then she frowned, her face falling slightly as she took in the appearance of one of her favorite people. "Unni, it must have been hard on you when your father died. You've got dark circles down to your chin."

"Really?" Nana touched beneath her eyes. Were the shadows that bad? She thought she'd been getting over that grief.

"Put some concealer on, will you?" Da-hye scolded lovingly, placing some of her own make up under Nana's eyes.

There was a sudden gust of wind as the door opened and both girls turned to see who the new customers were. Both grinned as they saw Jang Pil-jae dragging Shin Eun-ah behind him. "Hello!" He nearly cheered.

"Hi, Da Hye. Nana unni." Eun-ah squeaked, breathless and happy.

"You came?" Nana smiled back. Nothing made her happier in these few months than the relationship that had blossomed so beautifully between the IT geek and the bodyguard athlete.

"Did you get everything sorted out with your father?" Eun-ah asked sympathetically.

"Yes." Nana said, nodding. It was still tender to talk about.

Pil-jae and Eun-ah both pulled envelopes out of their jackets, bowing and suppressing giggles like teenagers as they passed one to each of the girls.

"Well that's how it turned out." Pil-jae laughed.

"We're getting married." Eun-ah clarified, smiling shyly.

"I told you that you two look good together!" Da-hye said, as if it was an obvious conclusion she'd arrived at ages ago.

"Congratulations!" Nana said, all her heart in the word.

"Thank you." Pil-jae bobbed like a mannequin, overcome with the sheer bliss of the announcement.

"But Nana unni, since you quit, and Lee Yoon-sung isn't around anymore, the Blue House is really cold and empty." Eun-ah said glumly.

"You said that as long as I was around, you were always happy…" Pil-jae said with disappointment. Eun-ah nudged him in embarrassment. "I guess that's why they say you have to be careful when you get married." He finished with a sigh.

Da-hye and Nana both handed back their invites, promising to come and the happy couple bounced off, to tell more people of their upcoming bliss.

Da-hye watched Nana narrowly as she returned her attention to her coffee. "Are you alright?" She asked.

"Of course." Nana smiled through the steam. _Lee Yoon-sung may be dead, but my heart isn't. As long as I love him, that's enough._

/

As the newly married couple waltzed across the dance floor, lost in the bliss of each other's eyes, Nana watched from the sidelines. Her glass of champagne was forgotten in her hand, her eyes following them wistfully.

If she closed her eyes, she knew she would able to recall exactly how it felt to have Yoon-sung's arms around her. If she closed her eyes, it could be them dancing across that floor.

She was fighting the temptation to close her eyes with everything she had.

She took a slug from her drink, suddenly remembering its purpose. She'd thought that she was leaving her memories behind and rebuilding, but it had taken this wedding to drive home to her just how much she was struggling.

She'd thought it would be running away to leave Seoul, but now she was starting to wonder if that wouldn't have been the smart thing to do. She wondered if it was possible to reconstruct her heart in the city of the city hunter.

"They're a nice couple, aren't they?" A deep voice enquired from her right.

Startled, Kim Nana glanced sideways. A tall man in a dark jacket stood there. For a moment her heart froze…just to start thumping with a painful beat again at he looked down. Just another handsome man in a tuxedo.

She looked away. "They are." She said with a false heartiness.

He must have heard the false note in her voice, because his look was curious. "Friend of the bride or groom?"

"Both." She took another swig of her champagne. "We used to work together."

"You were in IT?" He said with surprise.

She gave him a hard stare. "I was a bodyguard."

He blinked, and then his eyes lit with recognition. "That's right! I thought you looked familiar! You were the woman guarding the former president when that man tried to assassinate him. When the city hunter was unmasked. Lee something. Lee…"

"Lee Yoon-sung." She enunciated. She still loved those syllables. "A hero."

He blinked again, and then smiled. He had a nice smile. Young. Mischievous even. "Yes, he was. Would you care to dance by any chance?"

Kim Nana stared up at him for a long moment, weighing. Here was a perfectly nice man. Nothing really against him. She should say yes, and let him sweep her onto the floor. Maybe he'd talk, and she'd find she liked his sense of humor and the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. Maybe he'd ask her for a date, and she'd make him coffee. Maybe he'd take her dog for walks and they'd have meals together. Maybe they'd give each other nicknames and fight over the remote on Friday nights. Maybe they could create a family together.

All choices opened by a nice smile and saying yes to a request for a dance.

"No, thank you." Nana held up her now nearly empty glass. "I think I need to find another glass."

"Oh." Disappointed, his eyes flicked to the glass. "Maybe after…?"

She shook her head, letting him down gently. "I think I need to go home soon."

But as she turned and walked away, her actual thoughts were _I think I need to leave Seoul. _

_Note: Most of the dialogue from the first scene is taken from City Hunter, episode 20. None of it is original. No copyright infringement is intended._


	5. Chapter 5

5

/just may run away/

Kim Nana hugged Soo-hee. "I'll call you when I'm settled in." She promised.

Soo-hee looked unconvinced.

"You can even come visit." Nana coaxed. "You'll like it. A pretty little cottage on the edge of the sea. It's the best view ever."

"But will you be happy?" Soo-hee asked for the hundredth time.

And for the hundredth time, Nana found herself smiling a genuine, unpained smile. "Yes. I love the place. I love the island. And I think this job is perfect for me."

Soo-hee cocked her head. "Teaching judo to kids is a far cry from protecting the president." She pointed out.

"And that is exactly why I'm going to love it." Nana hefted her suitcase, checking the monitor. "Time for me to go. Planes wait for no man. Or woman."

Soo-hee swooped in for one last hug. "Please take care. Go carefully."

"Of course. Now go home." Nana shooed her. "Make sure my dog eats well."

"She'll be here waiting for you whenever you feel settled enough for me to bring her."

Nana nodded. "I'll let you know."

Soo-hee gave one, last unconvinced smile, and turned to leave, heading out through the bright light of the double doors. Nana hoped she had a wonderful life—a new love, plenty of adventure, and no more heartbreak.

They had both had enough for two lifetimes.

And that was exactly why she was moving to Jeju Island, to a whole new life. It was time to move on.

She turned and began to stride through the airport, keeping her eyes open nonetheless for Ahjusshi and Lee Kyung-hee. They were still in Seoul, their departure having been delayed by some mishaps with their visas, and she thought they might try to make it to say one final farewell.

When her eyes caught the dark, tall figure in the corner, of course her pulse jumped. She hadn't trained it yet to ignore the so many _might-be-but-never-are_'s.

Because of course when the darkly dressed man turned, it wasn't Lee Yoon-sung. She turned, feeling the sigh tug down her mouth despite her best intentions, her heart dropping seven stories as always. Six months, and he was still as alive to her as ever it seemed. She was fighting her memories, but it was like a losing battle.

Because Lee Yoon-sung was dead and he wasn't coming back…

A pair of dark shoes caught her eyes standing before her. Against her will her eyes travelled up a pair of impossible long legs, up a slender torso and chest that nevertheless looked both well-muscled and as if they'd be soft to rest her head on, up to a chin…a face…

She stopped breathing.

Chestnut hair, warm eyes, a crooked smile.

Her own smile was an automatic response, something she could no more control than a desire for air. It was as if someone had just taken a shard of glass out of her heart, the release from pain was so instantaneous.

_But it's impossible._

"Bear Nana." The voice was as rich and warm as she remembered, as all her dreams told her every night.

She balled her hands into fists. "You can't be real."

He took a hesitant step forward. "Can't I?"

She took a step forward as well, wanting to touch him, to make sure this wasn't a dream. "I saw you. You were shot. The doctor said you were dead."

"Aish, well." He shrugged. "I have many skills." A step.

"Including coming back from the dead?" Another step.

"I was thinking bribery." His smile was so heart-stopping she couldn't hold it in any more. She closed the last few paces between them at a run, flinging herself into the arms that were magically open to receive her.

She buried her face in his chest, hearing that beautiful, glorious rhythm that was his heartbeat, steady and strong. She wanted to drown in it, that sound that told her the past months had just been a nightmare.

"You were dead." She said into his shirt, unable to believe it.

"I have more lives than a cat. You should know. You shot me once." He reminded her, pulling away slightly to get a look at her face. His eyes devoured it hungrily, as if he had been starving without sight of it. It was more caress than look, a touch she could luxuriate in. She closed her eyes and bathed in the warmth of it.

His fingers fluttered down her cheek and she shivered at the touch. She'd longed for it so many nights, craved it like any drug, fought it like any addiction.

There'd been so many misunderstandings, so many wrong turns, always so many reasons to say good-bye. She wanted a reason to say hello. She wanted to know the whole story, not just bits and pieces that he was willing to share.

"What happened?" She asked forthrightly, opening her eyes.

He cupped her face in his hands. "I'll tell you. Later." He promised.

"Later?" She asked suspiciously.

With a hint of a smile, he leaned in. "Give me five minutes, Bear Nana?"

"For what?" She asked, trying to stay angry and failing, as a smile broke through her guards.

"For this." He leaned in, and when his lips met hers, it was as if she was drinking the sweetest coffee ever made.


	6. Chapter 6

6

/if you wait for it/

Nana braced herself for take-off, enjoying the commanding view sitting in the cockpit provided, but still slightly suspicious of her pilot.

"Are you sure you know how to fly this thing?"

He flashed her his trademark cocky smile and wink. "I come back from the dead, and you still don't trust my capabilities?"

"Don't think I've forgotten you owe me an explanation about that." She said, trying for stern and winding up with gooey. In a couple more hours she thought she might have her reservoir of righteous anger ready to go. At the moment, she was just too happy he was alive. It was an unfortunate weakness, but one she was willing to deal with if it meant having Lee Yoon-sung sitting next to her, flipping switches and talking into his headset like a pro.

"Ready?" He said with all the childish enthusiasm of the man she had first started to love, the one who had played in the fountain like a five year old.

"Ready." She affirmed checking her safety belt.

He began to carefully turn the private plane down the runway, and as it picked up speed, she stole a few moments to absorb him one more time.

He was alive.

He was here.

He was free of his obligations as city hunter.

They were together.

She sighed and closed her eyes, letting the beauty of the moment soak into her.

"Ya!" He said, sounding outraged. "You're missing the best part!"

"The best part?" She smiled, opening her eyes.

"Yeah!" He said. "Watch this." And as he spoke the plane began to lift off the ground, into the sky, like a free wild thing.

His eyes glowed, and Nana found herself watching him rather than the world dropping away from beneath them. Which was an appropriate description for their relationship, she thought with a certain amount of resignation and amusement.

He looked sideways, catching her eyes, still glowing. "It's amazing, isn't it?"

She couldn't help but smile back. "It is." She agreed.

He focused again on his piloting. "Alright. You had questions?"

That snapped her attention back to the real world. "Yes! First." She held up a finger. "The doctor said you were dead. What happened?"

He smirked. "Did you think I went into a face off with…with father without a back-up plan? I knew my identity would probably be revealed, and that I'd wind up hurt. And if I didn't want to deal with some sort of court case, it would be more convenient if I was dead. So ahjusshi and I had a mechanism set in place in the hospital through which I'd be reported dead while actually recuperating somewhere isolated. You are now looking at Yoon Jae-young, by the way." He added. "New identity and all."

Kim Nana rolled her eyes, and then caught something important. "Ahjusshi? So he knew you were alive this whole time?"

Yoon-sung nodded. "But he's the only one. Not even mother knows."

Nana sat back, stunned. "But why? Why didn't you tell us? Your mother's going through hell. _I_ went through hell!"

His face sobered and the nose of the plane dipped slightly. He straightened it out almost without thinking. "Bear Nana…" He said slowly.

She folded her arms. "I'm waiting."

"I had a…revelation. When I shot father." He said the words without flinching, even though it clearly cost him something. "That what I was doing…I was doing it for all the wrong reasons, maybe. Revenge. Hate. Anger. But that what I was doing wasn't necessarily wrong. That maybe, done for the right reasons, it could be the right thing."

Nana shot upright in her seat. "You have to be joking."

He shook his head, his hands white-knuckled on the steering mechanism. "Kim Young-joo…he died, trying to fix the country's problems through the law. He died beaten to a bloody pulp. I nearly died without my mask. Am I so wrong," he said, his voice suddenly pleading, "to think that the world needs City Hunter? That if he lives driven to do good by good motivations, he can actually help?"

"Yoon-sung! You promised me…once this was over, you said you'd be free!"

"I am free." He changed the plane's direction slightly. "I just feel that my duty lies in another direction now."

"Hardly. You'd still be a vigilante, with both the cops and the mob bosses after you. What's changed? How do you think you can survive that again?"

"With a lot of luck." His smile was slightly less cocky. He stole a glance at her. "Bear Nana…"

She folded her arms and looked resolutely out of the window. "So you let everyone think you were dead to protect us against your new would-be enemies. I hate it. I hate it so much, Yoon-sung. I want to be your partner, not your weakness."

He slid his hand over to hers, tugging at it insistently until she let him wrap their fingers together. "You're both." He said quietly.

She bit her lip to keep the tears from coming. "So what are you thinking then? You shunt me off to Jeju Island where I'll be safe?"

He smiled reluctantly. "That was the general idea, yes."

"I hate you." She retorted, shucking her hand free of his, and curling it back up beneath her arm.

"Bear Nana…"

"Don't talk to me."

They spent the rest of the flight in silence.

/

Nana leaned against her porch door, listening to the sounds of the crickets and watching Yoon-sung's back where he sat hunched like a dejected puppy at the edge of her deck.

Once they'd hit the tarmac, she'd left him behind, burning in her newly recovered righteous fury. She'd stalked to a taxi cab, given it the directions to her new home, and left Yoon-sung in the dust.

Half an hour later, he'd showed up at her stoop with a hang-dog demeanor and her suitcase under his arm.

She'd taken the suitcase and slammed the door in his face.

While she'd spent the afternoon arranging her new house and enjoying the fact that it came fully-furnished, Yoon-sung had done odd jobs out in the yard. Occasionally she'd catch his eye through the window, and she'd instantly duck back to whatever chore she'd been working on…until he'd looked away and she'd looked back at him again.

He was skinnier than she remembered, his clothes hanging loose on his frame. He must have been sick for quite a while. His face looked hollow too, when not lit with the luminescence of his smile.

Lifting a box down from a high shelf in a cupboard, Nana wondered what his decision to continue being a vigilante had cost him.

Scrubbing down a floor, she remembered the way voice had hitched so slightly when he mentioned shooting his father.

Making a bed, she felt the burn of his unspoken apology, his plea for her safety, work its way through her hand.

She didn't want to see it from his perspective. It was sexist and old-fashioned and it made her angry.

But the truth was, Yoon-sung was the boy who had lost everyone he'd ever loved, who'd watched her nearly bleed out in his arms, who sought so desperately to preserve people because he knew how easily you could lose them.

She couldn't begrudge him his protective instincts. As long as he didn't begrudge her hers.

So as the sun set and she leaned against her doorframe, she was struck anew how by beautiful he was—in thought and deed, body and soul.

"Ya, Yoon-sung."

He twisted around, startled.

"Let's eat." She pushed away from the door and walked inside, not needing to look back to know he was fist-pumping the air and following her in like a little kid.

She smothered a smile.


End file.
